was shut.
Mother was sliding biscuits into the oven when I entered the
kitchen. I looked around, mentally searching the house. What do I
need from this place? There was only one thing: my memories. I found
them under my bed, in a box, where I had left them. I carried them to
the car and put them in the backseat.
“I’m going for a drive,” I told Mother. I tried to keep my voice
smooth. I hugged her, then took a long look at Buck’s Peak,
memorizing every line and shadow. Mother had seen me take my
journals to the car. She must have known what that meant, must have
sensed the farewell in it, because she fetched my father. He gave me a
stiff hug and said, “I love you, you know that?”
“I do,” I said. “That has never been the issue.”
Those words are the last I said to my father.—I DROVE SOUTH; I didn’t know where I was going. It was nearly
Christmas. I had decided to go to the airport and board the next flight
to Boston when Tyler called.
I hadn’t spoken to my brother in months—after what happened with
Audrey, it had seemed pointless to confide in my siblings. I was sure
Mother would have told every brother, cousin, aunt and uncle the story
she had told Erin: that I was possessed, dangerous, taken by the devil.
I wasn’t wrong: Mother had warned them. But then she made a
mistake.
After I left Buck’s Peak, she panicked. She was afraid I might contact
Tyler, and that if I did, he might sympathize with me. She decided to
get to Tyler first, to deny anything I might tell him, but she
miscalculated. She didn’t stop to think how the denials would sound,
coming from nowhere like that.
“Of course Shawn didn’t stab Diego and threaten Tara with the
knife,” Mother reassured Tyler, but to Tyler, who had never heard any
part of this story, not from me or anyone else, this was somewhat less
than reassuring. A moment after he said goodbye to Mother, Tyler
called me, demanding to know what had happened and why I hadn’t
come to him.